Evening had closed in, and the shadows of the mountain were already gathering around the house, from whose windows no loving eye greeted her. The carriage stopped. No one came to meet her--everything was lifeless and deserted. Her heart sank as she alighted.
"Martin--drive to the stable and see if you can find the maid servant," said the countess in a low tone, as if afraid of rousing some shape of horror. Martin did not utter a word, his good natured face was unusually grave as he drove off around the house in the direction of the stables.
The countess stood alone before the locked door. The evening wind swept through the trees and shook the boughs of the pines. A few broken branches swayed and nodded like crippled arms; they were the ones from which Freyer had taken the evergreen for the child's coffin. At that time they were stiff with ice, now the sap, softened by the Spring rain, was dripping from them. Did she understand what the boughs were trying to tell her? Were her cheeks wet by the rain or by tears? She did not know. She only felt unutterably deserted. She stood on the moss-grown steps, shut out from her own house, and no voice answered her call.
A cross towered above the tree-tops, it was on the steeple of the old chapel where they both lay--Josepha and the child. A bird of prey soared aloft from it and then vanished in the neighboring grove to shield its plumage from the rain. It had its nest there.
Now all was still again--as if dead, only the cloud rising above the wood poured its contents on the Spring earth. At last footsteps approached. It was the girl bringing the keys.
"I beg the countess' pardon--I did not expect Your Highness so late, I was in the stable unlocking the door," she said. Then she handed her the bunch of keys. "This one with the label is the key of the steward's room, he made me promise not to give it to anybody except the countess, if she should come again."
"Bring a light--it is growing dark," replied the countess, entering the sitting-room.
"I hope Your Highness will excuse it," said the girl. "Everything is still just as it was left after the funerals of Josepha and the child. Herr Freyer wouldn't allow me to clear anything away." She left the room to get a lamp. There lay the dry pine branches, there stood the crucifix with the candles, which had burned low in their sockets. This for weeks had been his sole companionship. Poor, forsaken one! cried a voice in the countess' heart, and a shudder ran through her limbs as she saw on the sofa a black pall left from Josepha's funeral. It seemed as if it were Josepha herself lying there, as if the black form must rise at her entrance and approach threateningly. Horror seized her, and she hurried out to meet the girl who was coming with a light. The steward's room was one story higher, adjoining her own apartments. She went up the stairs with an uncertain tread, leaving the girl below. She needed no witness for what she expected to find there.
She thrust the key into the lock with a trembling hand and opened the door. Sorrowful duty! Wherever she turned in this house of mourning, she was under the ban of her own guilt. Wherever she entered one of the empty rooms, it seemed as if whispering, wailing spirits separated and crept into the corners--to watch until the moment came when they could rush forth as an avenging army.
At her entrance the movement was communicated through all the boards of the old floor until it really seemed as if viewless feet were walking by her side. For a moment she stood still, holding her breath--she had never before noticed this effect of her own steps, she had never been here alone. Her sleeping-room was beside her husband's--the door stood open--he must have been in there to bid farewell before going away. She moved hesitatingly a few steps forward and cast a timid glance within. The two beds, standing side by side, looked like two coffins. She felt as if she beheld her own corpse lying there--the corpse of the former Countess Wildenau, Freyer's wife. The woman standing here now was a different person--and her murderess! Yet she grieved for her and still felt her griefs and her death-struggle. She hastily closed and bolted the door--as if the dead woman within might come out and call her to an account.